0530, A Muggle Hospital
by frolicinapathy
Summary: Just a scene from a fic that never came to fruition - Harry ends up in a Muggle hospital, and Severus keeps his vigil.


N.B. The world and its characters belong to J. K. Rowling.

That incessant screeching of those stupid Muggle contraptions—whatever they were called—oh right, machines. A sure butchering and over-exaggeration of the word's Classical origins. The every nuance of Potter's heartbeat need not be broadcast to a building of ignorant Muggles, for Merlin's sake. No subtlety, only torment. He spelled them off.

Ah, glorious silence.

"Hey, they're there for a reason. Keep them on," mumbled the blankets. Tch. Asleep, his foot.

Severus grumbled and spelled the machines on again, though they beeped marginally quieter this time.

xxxxx

Stiff. Cold. He wrenched open his eyes and found his cheek mashed against a warm, thigh-shaped mass covered with a scratchy blanket, and the aching muscles of his torso and arms squashed and bent awkwardly over the side railing of the bed. Groggily, he managed to shove himself into a proper sitting position, leaving his arms, heavy with sleep and weak from holding its uncomfortable position, resting on the railing. Almost dawn, his awakening brain supplied as a chilly draft hit his rumpled, once-warm cheek. The sky was still dark, save for a pale silver of almost-light that barely filtered through the hospital blinds. He paid no heed to the blaring city lights, omnipresent in these vulgar settlements of Muggle life. No need to remind himself where he was. He drew in a huge breath for a sigh, and his nose picked up that acerbic, irritatingly Muggle tang of hospital disinfectant. Blargh. He exhaled his slow, reserved sigh. He pretended with all his might that the machines' beeping was birds outside the window. Muggles.

Though, there was that one (no, not blissfully) non-Muggle thing in his peripheral vision, which was busy snoring softly on that barely-cushioned excuse they called a hospital bed (well, fine, it was blissful, only because that thing on the bed was the least repulsive of everything in that room, and he was warm). Casting a wordless Cushioning spell on the thin mattress, he turned his neck to crack its stiffened joints and regarded the sleeping Harry Potter.

Drooling, again. The only reason why he would thank the heavens above for that would be because it was a sure sign that Potter wasn't dead. Wordless spells on Potter might wake him up, and would just show what a lazy bum Severus was. He reached a still-cramped arm to grasp an abandoned edge of the blanket (still lazy then. Whatever) and wiped the trail of drool off Potter's cheek as gently as he could. Severus lingered to feel his little puffs of breath on the back of his hand (checking vital signs, what else), then reached up to brush the overgrown hair away from Potter's eyes, revealing the sheen of perspiration across his forehead, remnants of the disaster Severus decidedly never wanted to go through again. Somehow, his hand stilled and he himself moved, aching body protesting, to press his lips lightly against where the lightning bolt scar lay, chapped lips picking up the knobbly feel of the old scar tissue (he was intrigued, and drowsy). Withdrawing his lips, he placed his fingers over the scar, relishing in the feel of a once-explosive weapon—against Harry, yet so instrumental against Voldemort—lying dormant and still slightly feverish across the pads of his fingers (..."Harry"? He must have gone completely off the rocker). By the time he felt a pair of curious eyes gazing his way, he realised that he'd started to trace his fingertips up and down the zigzagged scar, experimentally shaping the syllables of "Harry" over and over again with his mouth. Before he could withdraw in shock, however, Harry reached out to clasp Severus' other hand resting on the railing, lacing their fingers together as he pulled Severus' hand against his side. Harry's other hand snaked out from the covers to brush over the creases (courtesy of that dratted blanket) on Severus' cheek, giggled (that nerve would never abate, he was sure of it), and promptly fell back asleep.

A grudgingly-welcome warmth spread from where Harry touched his cheek to the rest of Severus' night-chilled body. As he impusively resumed his previous ministrations (for Harry's benefit, not that of his swelling heart), he noticed he was starting to memorise the feel of each tiny maroon bump, every one making up the lightning scar that made Harry Harry. Harry. Har-ee.


End file.
